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Archive for May, 2018

Why Pakistan-US Ties Reached Point of No Return? By Sajjad Shaukat

Why Pakistan-US Ties Reached Point of No Return?

By Sajjad Shaukat

 

 

 

In the recent years, unbridgeable trust deficit existed between Pakistan and the United States because of America’s double game with Islamabad. But, President Donald Trump’s flawed strategy in South Asia, based upon anti-Pakistan moves, has taken the Pakistan-US ties to point of no return.

 

It is notable that during the heightened days of the Cold War, despite Pakistan’s membership of the US sponsored military alliances SEATO and CENTO, including Pak-US bilateral military agreement, America did not come to help Pakistan against India which separated East Pakistan in 1971.

 

After the end of the Cold War, the US left both Pakistan and Afghanistan to face the fallout of the Afghan war 1. By manipulating the nuclear programme of Islamabad, the US imposed various sanctions on Pakistan.

 

But, after the 9/11 tragedy, America, again, needed Pakistan’s help and President George W. Bush insisted upon Islamabad to join the US global war on terror. Pakistan was not only facing an acute financial crisis but was also depending upon foreign loans, while all the major financial institutes like IMF and World Bank are controlled by America. Besides, Pakistan was also facing hostile factor of India. Taking cognizance of all the related-factors, Islamabad decided to join the US war on terror.

 

Pakistan was also granted the status of the non-NATO ally by America due to the early successes, achieved by Pakistan’s Army and country’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) against the Al-Qaeda militants.

 

Within a few years, when the US-led NATO forces felt that they are failing in coping with the stiff resistance of the Taliban in Afghanistan, they started accusing Pak Army and ISI of supporting the Afghan Taliban. US high officials and their media not only blamed Pakistan for cross-border terrorism in Afghanistan but also presumed that a plot to attack the US homeland would be prepared in FATA (Tribal areas) where safe-havens of Al-Qaeda exist. They constantly emphasized upon Pakistan to do more against the militants and continued the CIA-operated drone attacks on Pakistan’s tribal areas by ignoring the internal backlash in the country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviving the double game as part of anti-Pakistan approach, President Donald Trump stated in his tweet on January 1, this year, “The US has foolishly given Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies and deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”

 

Weeks earlier of this tweet, while, unveiling national security strategy, Trump had said, “We make massive payments every year to Pakistan. They have to help.”

In his speech on August 21, 2017, while announcing the US new strategy regarding Afghanistan as part of the policy in South Asia, President Donald Trump, particularly, singled out Pakistan for criticism.

 

Using tough words against the US ally Pakistan, Trump revived the old blame game of his predecessors Bush and Obama regarding the cross-border terrorism in Afghanistan by saying Washington could “no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens for terrorist organizations”, and threatened to target the terrorists’ sanctuaries in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Trump stated, “We have been paying Pakistan billions of dollars, at the same time, they are housing the very terrorists we are fighting…that must change immediately.

 

As regards Pakistan’s regional rival India, Donald Trump added, “We appreciate India’s important contributions to stability in Afghanistan…We want them to help us more with Afghanistan.”

 

Meanwhile, on January 5, 2018, the US suspended $255 million of military aid to Islamabad as a condition to do more against terrorism.

 

Taking cognizance of the latest tweet of President Trump, Pakistan’s civil and military leaders, including all the mainstream political parties united against the US aggressive stance against the country and offered a stark response to Trump’s false accusations.

 

In this regard, a high-level meeting of National Security Committee (NSC), which included senior civil-military leaders was held on January 2, this year to discuss US President Donald Trump’s latest allegations about Pakistan.

 

Similarly, on January 4, 2017, the in-camera session of Parliamentary Committee on National Security was convened under the chairmanship of Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq in which all parties’ parliamentary leaders participated.

 

The meeting expressed concern at the assertion of the US President Trump and condemned it. After the meeting, Speaker Ayaz Sadiq told the journalists, “Pakistan wants to give a strong and balanced reaction on the US President’s statement…the parliament is not indifferent on defence of the country…all political parties have consensus on it and they are all on one page pertaining to national security, defence and prestige of Pakistan.”

 

After the committee’s meeting concluded, calling on the country to unite, Vice Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Shah Mehmood Qureshi addressed the media and pointed out that the pressure that Washington is exerting on Pakistan “will have implications on the entire region…We have to look at the situation in the Middle East, at relations between the US and Iran …We have to consider these things as they are part of the larger picture upon which our response must be formulated…Trump’s statement is of an unusual nature. We have to take it seriously…the figures put forward by Washington differ from the reality and that, during the fight against terror, Pakistan has taken up expenditures that the US is yet to reimburse.”

Defence Minister Ghulam Dastagir stated that, after 16 years of fighting terror, the US owed Pakistan $23 billion…of this amount, Pakistan has been paid $14bn and an amount of $9bn is pending.”

 

Besides, other politicians including PTI Chairman Imran Khan and Foreign Minister Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif rejected Trump’s blame game.

 

Chairman Imran Khan said, “Just as India blames Pakistan for the indigenous Kashmiri uprisings when these are a result of its own failed policy of repression in the Indian Occupied Kashmir…So the US again blames Pakistan for its deeply flawed and failed Afghan policy stretching over a decade…We must also reject being made scapegoats for the policy failures of the US and India…The new US policy is aimed at de-nuclearising Pakistan…India’s major role in Afghanistan as per Trump administration’s new strategy for the region will have adverse impacts on Pakistan…Trump had threatened Pakistan in open words and undermined the country’s major contributions towards that war. It seems Trump has no knowledge of this region. He does not know the dynamics of over a decade-old war the US has been fighting in Afghanistan…The Trump’s new strategy will further weaken the US government and its economy…If you want peace in Afghanistan, you need Pakistan. More troops and money will not serve the purpose.”

 

Pakistan’s Foreign minister Khawaja Asif remarked, “Terrorist sanctuaries are present in East Afghanistan. It is from these safe havens inside Afghanistan that terrorist attacks are being launched on Pakistan…The claim by Trump regarding the funds, if we account for it, they include reimbursements too for the services rendered by Pakistan…Our land, roads, rail and, other different kinds of services were used for which we were reimbursed.”

 

According to the earlier statement of the ISPR, “Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa stated that “Pakistan was not looking for any material or financial assistance from the USA but trust, understanding and acknowledgement of our contributions…peace in Afghanistan is as important for Pakistan as for any other country.”

 

Trump’s tweets came a few days after the DG of ISPR Maj-Gen Asif Ghafoor said Pakistan had done enough and it was time for the United States and Afghanistan to do more.” He also urged the US to “check India’s anti-Pakistan role not only from inside of Afghanistan but also through the enhanced and increased ceasefire violations along the Line of Control and the Working Boundary”.

 

It is mentionable that that ideal strategic location of Pakistan’s province of Balochistan, its abundant mineral resources such as gas, coal and gold, and Pakistan’s close ties with China pinch the eyes of the US, India, Israel and some Western countries like the UK, who have been destabilizing Pakistan for their collective aims.

 

While, India was openly opposing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative, the US also joined India in this respect.  On October 3, 2017, US Defence Secretary James Mattis told the Lawmakers, “The United States has reiterated its support for India’s opposition to China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative…the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)”

 

In fact, CPEC which is part of the OBOR infuriates these foreign powers and has become the special target of their intelligence agencies.  

 

Notably, Pakistan is the only nuclear country in the Islamic World. Hence, the US-led India, Israel and some Western countries want to “denuclearize” Pakistan as part of the Zionist agenda.

 

Therefore, Pakistan was already on the hit-list of the US-led India and Israel, including some Western countries. But, after the shift of the Great Game from Central Asia to Pakistan, American CIA, Indian RAW and Israeli Mossad, including British MI6 had been supporting target killings, suicide attacks, hostage-takings, sectarian and ethnic violence in various cities of the country, while backing separatist elements in Balochistan.

 

As part of the dual strategy, based in Afghanistan, these intelligence agencies which have well-established their covert networks there and are well-penetrated in the terrorist outfits like the ISIL, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and their affiliated Taliban groups, are using their terrorists to destabilize Tibetan regions of China, Iranian Sistan-Baluchistan and Pakistan’s Balochistan by arranging the subversive activities. 

 

While, Pakistan’s Armed Forces have successfully broken the backbone of the foreign-backed terrorists by the military operations Zarb-e-Azb and Radd-ul-Fasaad which have also been extended to other parts of the country, including Balochistan and Karachi. Army and top intelligence agency ISI have broken the network of these terrorist groups by capturing several militants while thwarting a number of terror attempts. Peace has been restored in various regions of Pakistan, including Karachi and Balochistan.

 

But, these foreign elements have, again, started terror attacks in Balochistan and other regions of the country which show that the US-led India, Afghanistan and Israel want to weaken Pakistan and to damage the CPEC.

 

Although American Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama manipulated the 9/11 tragedy and its drastic aftermath to secure the illegitimate interests of Israel through the fake global war on terror which was, in fact, a war against the Islamic countries and the Muslims, as ground realities have proved, yet President Donald Trump has crossed all the limits in protecting the political, economic and religious interests of the Jews and Tel Aviv at the cost of Muslims and even patriot Americans. What President Bush and President Obama were doing secretly, President Trump has been doing openly.

 

Overtly, American high officials remark that they seek stability in Pakistan, while praising military operations against terrorism, but covertly, they continue destabilizing it, especially with the assistance of India as part of the anti-Pakistan and anti-China diplomacy.

 

Taking note of the US double game, Islamabad which has already strengthened its relations with China has also been cultivating its ties with Russia. In the recent past, Pakistan’s top officials have paid a visit to Moscow. In this regard, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif has openly stated that Islamabad will prefer Russia over America.

 

It is worth mentioning that in an interview to the “The Wall Street Journal” on January 5, 2018, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said, “He sees his country’s alliance with the US as over after the Trump administration announced the suspension of U.S. security-related aid to Pakistan…This is not how allies behave.”

 

Moreover, Pakistan is also improving its relations with Iran. At the end of last year, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa paid a visit to Tehran where he met Iranian civil and military high officials.

 

We may conclude that it is owing to the flawed strategy of President Donald Trump that Pakistan-US ties have reached the point of no return.

 

Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is the author of the book: the US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations

 

Email: sajjad_logic_pak@hotmail.com

 

 

 

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COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa Makes It to the List of Worlds’ Most Powerful by Ishaal Zehra

COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa Makes It to the List of Worlds’ Most Powerful – What it means to be in the Forbes’ annual ranking of The World’s Most Powerful People

Ishaal Zehra

 

 

 

There are nearly 7.5 billion humans on planet Earth, but the chosen 75 men and women make the world turn, claims the Forbes Magazine. Forbes’ annual ranking of The World’s Most Powerful People identifies one person out of every 100 million whose actions, as per their analysis, mean the most. Apparently, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa is included in those 75 people who have made up to the list, by superseding his slice of 100 million people in the world and double of this figure in Pakistan.

His designated crown ‘selected few most powerful persons’ for his efforts in begetting peace in the U.S. ally state by fighting away the terrorist groups present in the area, in addition to managing a complex relationship with India on its eastern border. Two years into his tenure as the head of the world’s sixth largest Army, Qamar Javed Bajwa has established himself as a mediator. The rift between India and Pakistan is improving, partly thanks to his efforts.

To compile the ranking of The World’s Most Powerful People, the magazine considered hundreds of candidates from various walks of life and measured their power along four dimensions. First, it was checked whether the candidate has power over lots of people. Next, the financial resources controlled by each person was assessed. Then, their power in multiple spheres was calculated. Forbes maintains that there are only 75 slots on the list, so being powerful in just one area is often not enough. Hence their picks project their influence in myriad ways. Lastly, they made sure that the candidates actively used their power.

To calculate the final rankings, a panel of Forbes editors ranked all of the candidates in each of these four dimensions of power, and those individual rankings were averaged into a composite score.

 

 

 

 

General Bajwa is a newcomer to the list along with 16 others on the list this year, including Mohammed Bin Salman Al Saud – the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, who is thought to be the fulcrum around which the Middle Eastern geopolitics moves for the next generation. Other new members include Jerome H. Powell – chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Darren Woods – CEO of Exxon Mobil, Moon Jae-in – President of South Korea and Robert Mueller – Special Counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice.

General Qamar Javed Bajwa was appointed as the 10th Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan by the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in December 2016.

He was commissioned on 24 October 1980 in 16 Baloch Regiment, which has produced three out of the sixteen army chiefs in the past — General Yahya, General Aslam Baig and General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.

General. Bajwa is a graduate of National Defence University, Islamabad, Canadian Forces Command and Staff College, (Toronto) Canada, Naval Post Graduate University, Monterey (California) in the USA. He has also served as an instructor at School of Infantry and Tactics, Quetta and Command and Staff College, Quetta and NDU, Islamabad.

Prior to being appointed as the Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan Army, General Bajwa served as the Inspector General Training and Evaluation from 2015–16 and as a field commander of the X Corps from 2013 to 2015 which is responsible for the area along the Line of Control. In addition, he also served as a peacekeeper in the UN mission in Congo as a Brigadier and served as the brigade commander in 2007. Forbes also cited former Chief of Indian Army Staff General Bikram Singh’s annotations regarding the Pakistani Chief. In fact, General Bajwa has served in Congo under General Bikram Singh who was all praises for Bajwa’s performance.

The Chief of Pakistan Army Staff has vast experience in the military field, especially in significant areas such as Baltistan and Kashmir. His approach towards Pakistan’s arch rivals and neighbours India remains passive yet firm which makes him a composed General ready to act with a clear mind rather than being impulsive. He has remained professional and away from politics throughout his term in the army which also adds to his qualities as a true military general.

This year’s list comes at a time of rapid and profound change and represents our best guess about who will matter in the year to come. Forbes magazine placed Chinese President Xi Jinping at the top of the list while placing Russia’s Vladimir Putin as the second most powerful man of 2018. Reducing the US President Donald Trump to number three position in the list of most powerful personality. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel was ranked fourth in the list, making her the most powerful woman in the world.

 

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Nazaryaati Dramay Baaz

Nazaryaati Dramay Baaz

Louti jaao,khaai jaao–

Jangla bus chalaai jaao–

Qatar say gas mangaai jaao–

Modi ko ghar bulaai jaao
Dozakh abhi door hai

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Israel’s nuclear weapons make the world a more dangerous place By Asa Winstanley

Israel is a Clear and Present Danger to the Muslim world. It has a declared policy of targeting Islamic nations with its Nuclear Bombs. Therefore, it is imperative that Islamic nations formulate a policy to counter this Israeli plan and pre-empt it before Israel has time to recover and critical to this would be the destruction of Israeli submarines carrying its nuclear weapons for its second strike capability. Israel is in secret collaboration with India and the minutes of Modi-Netanyahu meeting reflect this strategy. Israel and UAE are in secret agreements, therefore, UAE can be considered as Israel’s Trojan Horse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Privately, it has been well understood by US officials since the 1960s that Israel has the capacity to build its own nuclear weapons. Publicly, Israel has a policy of not confirming or denying its nuclear stockpile, even though by now it is a well-established fact.

Since 1968, or possibly even earlier, Israel has amassed a secretive arsenal thought to amount to at least 80 nuclear warheads. In a hacked 2015 email, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote that Israel has “200 [nuclear bombs], all targeted on Tehran.” The latter figure may be an exaggeration, but there’s no doubt that Israel has the bomb and in significant numbers.

The definitive book detailing the story of how Israel got the bomb is Seymour Hersh’s The Sampson Option. In it, Hersh – a renowned investigative journalist – recounts how Israel worked with French scientists in the 1950s and 1960s to build a nuclear reactor in Dimona in the southern Negev Desert. Photographs by US spy planes showed that Israel, despite its denials, was indeed building the reactor. However, the politicians and higher-ups seemed not to want to know.

In fact, there seems to have been a deliberate policy of successive US Presidents turning a blind eye to what was going on, ignoring their own intelligence briefs. One US ambassador to Israel, Walworth Barbour, was in post for 12 years and emblematic of this. His long assignment, Hersh wrote, was a testament to his “willingness to operate the American embassy as a subsidiary, if necessary, of the Israeli foreign ministry.” According to Hersh, Barbour was willing to stand aside when ordered to do so and “permit the White House and the Israeli ambassador to Washington to run the real policy behind his back.”

Official: Israel will attack Iran to prevent it acquiring nuclear weapons

The Sampson Option, published in 1991, is an impressive book, based largely on official US records and US and Israeli official sources, some speaking anonymously. It is the characteristic Hersh blend of impressive military and intelligence sources approached with admirable scepticism and critical rigour. Unlike most mainstream US journalists reporting on Israeli “intelligence” affairs, Hersh refused to submit his book to Israeli censorship.

It is an almost-entirely unreported scandal (in the mainstream, at least) that the Israeli military imposes crude censorship on both domestic and foreign journalists operating in the country. Any other regime operating in this way would not be presented by the media as a “democracy”, as Israel almost always is. For the Palestinians whose life it dominates through a brutal occupation, Israel is a military dictatorship.

Hersh was able to avoid Israeli censorship simply by staying out of the country. He talked to his Israeli sources either over the phone or while they were in the US.

Based on the accounts of anonymous Israeli officials, he recounts a telling story around the production of the first Israeli atomic bomb. With some of Israel’s current best friends being the far-right, anti-Muslim US President Donald Trump and the fascisticalt-right”, it is a story with a chilling current relevance.

In 1968, Israeli Defence Minister and former General Moshe Dayan showed the Labour government’s Finance Minister Pinchas Sapir around Dimona in an attempt to persuade him that the nuclear bomb made financial sense and was worth funding. Sapir was a sceptic, until Dayan “showed him the whole thing, from A to Z,” Hersh’s official Israeli source said.

“Have you seen it all?” Sapir later asked a ministerial colleague. “I’ve seen it and you don’t know shit. There will be no more Auschwitzes.”

This is a reference to the infamous Nazi death camps in which it is estimated that more than 1.3 million people were slaughtered, mostly Jews. The reference reflects the anachronistic idea, common in Israeli propaganda, that the state of Israel was established to protect Jewish people from Nazi genocide. It was, of course, in the planning at least 50 years before the extent of the Holocaust was acknowledged.

Israeli study warns Netanyahu against ending Iran nuclear deal

Furthermore, Israel’s founding ideology, Zionism, has a far darker and more complicated relationship with Nazism and anti-Semitism than simple opposition. At times, individuals and groups in the Zionist movement collaborated actively with Nazi Germany, first surfacing in the 1930s with the transfer agreement. In the case of Rudolf Katzner (later an Israeli government official and unsuccessful parliamentary candidate for Mapai, the party which went on to merge with other “left Zionist” groups to form Labour), this even extended to outright collaboration with the Nazi regime which was directly occupying Hungary towards the end of the war, giving breathing space for them to slaughter Hungarian Jews while saving himself and over 1,600 others.

Has the Israeli nuclear bomb made the world a safer place for Jews or anyone else for that matter? The answer is NO.

Were there to be a “new holocaust” today, there is little doubt that the main target would be Muslims. With the President of the US now openly promoting the vilest of anti-Muslim racists, an increasingly dangerous climate is being generated.

There is no doubt about which side Israel is on. Britain First, whose deputy leader’s messages Trump retweeted this week, is extremely pro-Israel, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is very pro-Trump. Within this sort of context, Israel’s nuclear weapons today are far more likely to create a “new Auschwitz” than to stop one.

 

Reference

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Nuclear Chutzpah By Eric Margolis

Nuclear Chutzpah

By Eric Margolis

May 07, 2018

 

 

 

‘Chutzpah’ is a wonderful Yiddish word that means outrageous nerve, or unmitigated gall.

This week’s Chutzpah Award goes to Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Standing in front of props of data files and cd’s, Netanyahu claimed Israel’s renowned Mossad spy agency had stolen a small mountain of secret Iranian nuclear data from a warehouse in Tehran.

The never-understated Netanyahu claimed that the purloined material proved that Iran was lying about having halted its covert nuclear program and must not be trusted.

Netanyahu’s supposed nuclear bombshell was likely the warm-up act for President Donald Trump to reject Iran’s nuclear freeze deal with the US, Russia, China, Germany, and France, blessed by the UN and the European Union. The only thing Trump apparently hates more than Muslims is his predecessor, former President Barack Obama (whom he accused of being a secret Muslim). The Iran nuclear deal was the most important foreign policy accomplishment of the Obama administration.

Netanyahu repeatedly warned the world about Iran’s alleged nuclear arsenal while making no mention at all of Israel’s own large, secret nuclear arsenal, which is believed to comprise of over 100 warheads, perhaps even several hundred, that can be delivered by aircraft, missiles and submarines. Every Mideast nation can be hit by Israeli nukes as well as Russia, which some experts say is or was on Israel’s target list.

Trump, of course, made no mention of the awkward fact that Israel had stolen much of its nuclear technology and uranium from the United States, sometimes with the connivance of very senior US government officials. France, that paragon of world peace, had the rest.

Listening to Netanyahu accuse Iran of hiding secret nuclear facilities was a pure pot calling the kettle black. Israel’s early nuclear program at Dimona in the Negev desert was entirely concealed from US and UN inspectors, including fake walls in the nuclear complex that completely fooled them. When Netanyahu accused Iran of cheating, he knows of what he speaks.

Most of what Netanyahu ‘revealed’ about Iran’s alleged nuclear program was old stuff, dating back to 1999-2003 and readily available in reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency. This respected UN agency now reports that Iran has fulfilled all of its commitments and abandoned its earlier nuclear program that did not produce any weapons before it was ended.

But facts don’t matter in this Trump-produced, made-for-TV drama. The key point is that with the naming of Michael Pompeo as US Secretary of State, and appointment of the rightwing fanatic John Bolton as US national security advisor, Israel’s rightwing government has completed its virtual takeover of US Mideast policy. As I’ve previously written, Trump looks more and more like a Trojan Horse for Netanyahu and his extremist allies.

 

Dimona-Israel Nuclear Program-Actual Nuclear Bombs are kept near Airbases such as one around Accor

 

 

 

 

 

 

Besides Pompeo and VP Mike Pence, both ardent Christian Zionists, and Bolton, Trump now has around him the UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, of Indian origin, who is the darling of the US far right and a handmaiden of arch-pro Israel billionaire, Sheldon Adelson, a major bankroller of the Republican Party. Add in Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and, of course, Trump’s daughter and son-in-law. In short, an amen-chorus for Israel’s far right.

This American Israel-first coalition has joined Netanyahu’s Likud alliance in pressing for war against Iran. The first skirmishes have already begun with over 100 Israeli air attacks on Syria, ostensibly against Iranian positions. A great propaganda hue and cry against the purported dangers of Iran is being raised in the US and Europe. According to Israel’s right, Assyrian hordes are about to engulf Israel.

 

 

 

 

In reality, Iran has very little offensive power. Like Iraq before it, Iran is militarily dilapidated with 40-year old equipment, a largely grounded air force, little artillery and poor communications. Tehran has a few inaccurate missiles but no nuclear warheads.

Israel’s powerful air force could easily turn any attacking Iranian forces into chopped falafel. Iran’s only strength is defensive, in urban combat or mountainous terrain. Iran has no capability to seriously threaten Israel except by aiding the Lebanese Hezbollah movement in showering northern Israel with light artillery rockets, a nuisance rather than a mortal danger.

Israel is moving to repeat its triumph in 2003 when the Bush administration, US partisans of Israel, and dishonest US media pushed the nation into a war of pure aggression against Iraq. Israel emerged the victor from this unprovoked war and is trying to repeat its success again with Iran.

Overthrowing Iran’s Islamic Republic would leave Israel the unchallenged power in the Mideast.

Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times, the Khaleej Times, Nation – Pakistan, Hurriyet, – Turkey, Sun Times Malaysia and other news sites in Asia.https://ericmargolis.com/

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